Abstract: “Mitzvah piety” of the individual outside of the cult comes to the fore most distinctly in the Priestly texts. Each mitzvah became an end in itself as a divine command that was meant to be obeyed by each individual, and the unique meaning or purpose of the particular mitzvah took on less significance. This development required a heightened emphasis on personal atonement and the role of the individual in attaining it through a sin offering, so that the dangers of contact with this new realm of holiness—any violation of which was a death penalty offense—could readily be averted.

Two Forms of Individual Piety

Individuals express their personal devotion to God in the Bible through two methods: cultic worship and obedience to commandments.[1]

Cultic Worship Already in Genesis, Cain and Abel bring their sacrifices to God from the produce of their labor (Gen 4:3-4), Noah offers a sacrifice of all the pure animals that were preserved in the ark after the end of the flood (Gen 8:20), and Abraham sets up altars in the land of Canaan and calls upon the name of the Lord (Gen 12:7-8, 13:18, 22:13). Jacob promises to honor God by building him a temple in Beth-el (Gen 28). The establishment of the tabernacle is surrounded by chapters full of rules about sacrifices (Lev 1-7), including an elaborate ritual for consecrating the tabernacle and the priests consisting of multiple sacrifices (Exod 29-30, Lev 8-9).

The joyous worship of God at the altar is expressed in many of the Psalms, such as Psalm 43:3-4:

Ps 43:33 Send forth Your light and Your truth; they will lead me; they will bring me to Your holy mountain, to Your dwelling-place, 43:4 that I may come to the altar of God, God, my delight, my joy; that I may praise You with the lyre, O God, my God.

Obedience to Commandments Individuals also express their devotion to God through obedience to the commandments (mitzvot).[2] Some of these mitzvot have a clear social-moral component to them (cf. e.g., the command to release loan debts every seventh year; Deut. 15:1-3), others, such as circumcision (Gen. 17), tzitzit (fringes; Numbers 15:37-41) or the eating of matzot for seven days (Exodus 12:15, 18; 23:15; etc.), do not. Some prohibitions or “negative” commandments have a clear moral component, such as the prohibition against killing and stealing, while others, such as the various food prohibitions, do not.

When the individual Israelite lives in accordance with these commandments, he or she actively exhibits loyalty and devotion to God within a non-cultic framework. Psalm 119 provides us with a striking illustration of this type of “mitzvah piety.”

Ps 119:33 Teach me, YHWH, the way of your decrees, that I may follow it to the end. 119:34 Give me understanding, so that I may keep your law and obey it with all my heart. 119:35 Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight.

As in Psalm 43 cited above, the Psalmist of Psalm 119 asks God to guide him on a divine path that leads to spiritual bliss. The difference is that while in Psalm 43 the Psalmist asks God to guide him to the altar of sacrifice, in Psalm 119 he asks that God show him the path of the commandments.

From Sacrificial Piety to Mitzvah Piety

What is the relationship between these two forms of biblical piety? There should be little doubt that they can exist side by side, and, at least to a certain extent, did. In Psalm 26, for example, the Psalmist confidently calls upon God to examine his behavior and inner intentions. After affirming that he has had no dealings with the wicked, he concludes,

Thus, this psalm includes both the image of piety as good behavior (however inchoate) as well as the importance of a ritual at the altar.[3]

Nonetheless, I believe that it is possible to discern that non-Temple related mitzvot of the individual, especially those detached from morality, played, at first, a relatively marginal role. Slowly, these kinds of mitzvot multiplied, and came to take on an increasingly prominent position. Indeed, with time, they took on an intense, absolute and all-encompassing quality.

The Need for Individual AtonementIn accordance with this development, and concomitant with it, the Temple cult increasingly came to take on a role for the individual Israelite that was probably, originally, far less central – that of providing for individual atonement. We can see the development of this concept by looking at the passages about sin offerings (חטאת) in different sections of what scholars refer to as the “Priestly” source of the Torah (=P).

Leviticus 4 lists the sacrifices that must be offered when someone inadvertently transgresses any one of the negative commandments (=divine prohibitions). The exact type of sacrifice depends on whether the sinner(s) in question is the high priest, the entire community of Israel, the chieftain of a tribe, or—most significant for our purposes—just an individual person.

Lev 4:27 If any person from among the populace unwittingly incurs guilt by doing any of the things which by YHWH’s commandments ought not to be done, and he realizes his guilt —4:28 or the sin of which he is guilty is brought to his knowledge — he shall bring a female goat without blemish as his offering for the sin of which he is guilty. 4:29 He shall lay his hand upon the head of the sin offering…4:31…and the priest shall turn it into smoke on the altar, for a pleasing odor to YHWH. Thus the priest shall make expiation for him, and he shall be forgiven.

The text deals with cases that might include inadvertently eating chametz on one of the seven days of the holiday of Matzot, violating the law in Exodus 12:15; the sinner must bring a female goat to the altar for slaughter. The priest must apply the blood of the slaughtered goat on the horns of the outer altar, pour the rest of the blood at its base, and place the fatty parts of the goat on the altar’s fire, and with that the priest will have effected “expiation (or atonement) for him and he shall be forgiven.”

The Sin Offering in Numbers 15

Numbers 15:22-31 (also P) fills out Leviticus 4 with two new elements.[4]

Violation of Positive CommandmentsThe section applies the same cultic procedure referred to in Lev. 4 even when one inadvertently fails to fulfill a positive commandment.[5]

Num 15:22 If you unwittingly fail to observe any one of the commandments that YHWH has declared to Moses 15:23 — anything that YHWH has enjoined upon you through Moses — from the day that YHWH gave the commandment and on through the ages.

This text expresses the case in terms of “failing to do” things that ought to be done whereas Lev 4 refers to “doing things that ought not be done.” Moreover, the context of Numbers implies that positive commands are included since these verses follow the (positive) command to set aside a gift to the temple from one’s dough (challah). Thus, if an individual Israelite, let us say, forgot to eat matzot during the festival (Exod 12:15), the same cultic procedure as described in Lev. 4 must carried out.

Death from Heaven The text further adds that an intentional transgression of any single commandment cannot be atoned for.[6] That sinner, the text emphatically affirms, will suffer death from heaven:

Num 15:30 But the person, be he citizen or stranger, who acts defiantly, he reviles YHWH; that person shall be cut off from among his people. 15:31 Because he has spurned the word of YHWH and violated His commandment, that person shall be cut off — he bears his guilt.

Thus, continuing the example used above, if an individual knowingly refrained from eating matzot on the festival, that person cannot atone for that omission with a sacrifice, and that individual’s life is cut off by God.[7]

Death Penalty for All Mitzvah Violations?The text immediately following this law describes the execution of the man who gathered wood on Shabbat (Num 15:32-36). This juxtaposition seems to imply that the divine execution of an intentional sinner is only when his crime went unnoticed, otherwise the guilty party should be executed by the people. (Shabbat, in context, appears to be an example of breaking one of God’s laws, and is broadly applicable to all other laws.)

The Significance and Need of Atonement

In these Priestly passages, mitzvot carry severe weight and violators take their lives in their hands. Absolute obedience is of paramount importance. In addition, the different mitzvot are treated as an undifferentiated totality: All mitzvot were given by God so they must all be treated with the same stark severity.

This should not be confused with the conception of the Mishnah Avot 2:1, quoted in the name of R. Judah HaNasi:

והוי זהיר במצוה קלה כבחמורה שאין אתה יודע מתן שכרן של מצות.

Be as careful with a light mitzvah as with a severe one, since you do not really know the reward for each.

The assumption of the Mishnah is that the mitzvot are not of equal weight, but we don’t know God’s accounting. The P texts, on the other hand, imply that God treats them all with equal severity. At least theoretically, no difference exists in God’s eyes between the prohibition of murder and that of spreading gossip (Lev. 19:16) or wearing shaatnez (wool and flax mixed together; Lev. 19:19).

This is why rituals that effect divine forgiveness are so important for the Priestly authors. If it were not for the continuous availability of forgiveness/atonement, at least for transgressions committed inadvertently, few, it would seem, would live very long. This also explains the need for a day of atonement (Yom Hakippurim) to cover all the inadvertent sins for which an individual (or community) did not bring a sin-offering.[8] In contrast, no non-Priestly legal text discusses the need for atonement through sin-offerings or even mentions a day of atonement.

Mitzvah Hierarchy in Non-Priestly Law Codes

The non-Priestly sources, in contrast to the above mentioned Priestly ones, offer an implicit hierarchy as regards the relative importance of the mitzvot. Thus, the laws of the Covenant Collection in ParashatMishpatim (Exod 21:1-23:19) fail to mention punishment of any sort for failure to bring your first born animal to God on time (Exod 22:28-29), or for eating meat torn from a living animal (22:30), or for not allowing your workers to cease work on the day of rest (23:12). On the other hand, it does insist that witches, zooerasts, and idolaters be executed (Exodus 22:17-19), and guarantees that God will personally execute individuals that oppress widows and orphans (Exodus 22:21-23):[9]

Exod 22:21 You shall not ill-treat any widow or orphan. 22:22 If you do mistreat them, I will heed their outcry as soon as they cry out to Me, 22:23 and My anger shall blaze forth and I will put you to the sword, and your own wives shall become widows and your children orphans.

Similar punishments or expressions of divine displeasure are not listed for other violations, implying that not all laws are equal in this law collection.[10]

Deuteronomy and Keeping MitzvotIn Deuteronomy as well, not all mitzvot are equal. Though this book generally calls upon Israel to keep the commandments as a whole, the negative alternative to this is almost always idolatry/the worship of others gods (Deut. 8:19-20; 11:13-16, 26-28; 29:23-25; 30:15-20. Contra, however, Deut. 28). Idolatry is thus presented as the great sin that threatens national life on the land. No other commandment, not even the oft repeated demand to worship exclusively at the site of God’s choosing (Deut 12 and elsewhere), is of comparable status.

Further, while Deuteronomy strains to encourage the individual Israelite to observe certain select “moral” commandments with the promise of individual divine reward (e.g., the sending off of the mother bird when taking her eggs – Deut 22:6-7; allowing a poor debtor to sleep with his pledge – Deut 24:12-13), it neither promises divine reward nor threatens divine punishment to the individual with regard to any non-moral, “ritual” mitzvah.[11] Clearly, then, for Deuteronomy as well, some mitzvot are more important than others.

Prevalence of Ritual Law Independent of the CultMoreover, aside from idolatry, the offences narrated in Mishpatim chiefly concern relations between people. Only a few strictly ritual prohibitions are mentioned.[12] The ritual element is more prominent in Deuteronomy. Nonetheless, broadly speaking, the non-Priestly law codes as a whole are heavily weighted toward civil law, contrasting with Priestly legislation that is filled with ritual laws.

Most important, it is in the Priestly sources that we find ritual commandments, such as circumcision (Gen 17), wearing tzitzit (Num 15:37-41), or dwelling in a sukkah (Lev 23:42), that are not observed at a cultic site.[13] Finally, the Priestly sources exhibit many non-cult-related, ritual prohibitions and attach an intensified to severity to them.[14] In short, the late Priestly sources facilitated a situation in which more and more aspects of the individual’s life came into contact with what we may characterize as a non-cultic realm of holiness.[15]

The Centrality of Individuals and
of their Mitzvot in Late P Texts

“Mitzvah piety” of the individual outside of the cult thus comes to the fore most distinctly in the Priestly texts. At this stage, each mitzvah became an end in itself as a divine command that was meant to be obeyed by each individual, and the unique meaning or purpose of the particular mitzvah took on less significance.

This development required a heightened emphasis on personal atonement and the role of the individual in attaining it, so that the dangers of contact with this new realm of holiness—any violation of which was a death penalty offense—could readily be averted. Thus developed a religiosity of heightened scrupulousness concerning the law, as well reflected in the words of Psalm 19:12-14:

Ps 19:12 Your servant pays them heed; in obeying them there is much reward. 19:13 Who can be aware of errors? Clear me of unperceived guilt. And from willful sins keep Your servant; let them not dominate me; then shall I be blameless and clear of grave offense.

It was surely thanks to the development and intensification of this non-cultic piety, and to the new emphasis on the individual Israelite, that Israel was able to survive the eventual destruction of the Jerusalem Temple.

___________________

Dr. Rabbi David Frankel did his doctorate at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem under the direction of Prof. Moshe Weinfeld. His publications include The Murmuring Stories of the Priestly School (VTSupp. 89) and The Land of Canaan and the Destiny of Israel (Eisenbrauns). He teaches Hebrew Bible to M.A. and Rabbinical students at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies in Jerusalem, where he lives with his wife and five children.

03/29/2017

[1] In theory, a third option, prayer, could be added to the mix. Nevertheless, prayer seems to be secondary in the Bible from a number of vantage points. First, prayer of the individual, as in many of the Psalms, takes place at the Temple, and is presumably accompanied by sacrifice. Those individuals who can’t afford a sacrifice often express anxiety about that and remind God that what he really wants is an honest heart (cf. Ps 40:7 in light of verse 18; Ps 69:30-32). So prayer is to a great extent a part of cult. Second, songs of praise are often sung by individuals upon the fulfillment of a neder (oath) and should be understood as a part of this process. See, for example, Hannah’s prayer (1 Sam 2:1-10; cf. Ps 50:14-15). Third, prayer outside of the Temple is generally practiced when the temple or altar is not accessible (cf. 1 Kgs 8:46—48 in contrast with most of the other passages in the chapter, where יתפללו אל המקום הזה means “they will pray at this place.” See v. 33.). Fourth, prayer is not standardized in any way, contrary to sacrificial law which is very standardized, including rules about when an individual must visit the Temple and bring a sacrifice (holidays, sins, births, etc.). In contrast, one need not pray at all. Prayer is the initiative of the individual and expresses the needs of the individual.

[2] Of course, many of the commandments in the Torah, particularly in Leviticus, relate in great detail to the proper forms of cultic worship, and may be said to belong mostly to the previous category. Furthermore, many of the commandments are directed to Israel as a group rather than to the individual qua individual, such as the command to set up cities of refuge for the inadvertent killer (Deut. 19; Numbers 35). Many other positive commandments, however, are directed toward the individual and are not related to Temple worship.

[3] A clearer example of the coexistence of law and sacrifice is provided by Psalm 50. Here we find a condemnation of the “wicked one” (the priest?) who hypocritically relates God’s laws to the “pious ones” who are involved in a sacrificial feast at the Temple. See especially verses 5, 16ff. and 23. One may wonder, however, if the laws that the wicked one relates are not essentially those related to cultic worship and the endowments owed to the priests.

[4] In all likelihood, the material in Numbers 15 constitutes a later expansion in relation to Leviticus 4. In the present context, however, the texts may be treated as reflecting the same basic trend.

[5] This is not the traditional reading of the text, which instead argues midrashically that the law applies only to idolatry, claiming that violating “all these laws” means “violating a law that equals all laws.” See Rashi ad loc. (based on b. Shabbat 69a and b. Horayot 8a).

[6] According to Jacob Milgrom in his JPS commentary on Numbers (ad loc., p. 125), the statement of Numbers 15:30-31, that he who acts ביד רמה, “defiantly,” is subject to karet and cannot offer a sacrifice of atonement, refers only to the one who publicly flaunts his defiant behavior. The person who knowingly and intentionally transgresses the law but does not flaunt it in public does have the option of offering the sacrifice. This interpretation is doubtful. First, if ביד רמה refers to defiant acts done in public why is this punished by karet alone? Why shouldn’t the community punish him? The person who curses the name of God in public, for example, is executed by the community (Lev. 24:10-23). The warning of the karet punishment fits much better for a sin that is hidden from the people. This is why punishment must be meted out by God. Second, the fact that ביד רמה is placed in contrast with בשגגה implies that it refers to sins done knowingly and intentionally. This in itself constitutes defiance. If the sacrifice of atonement was indeed available to the person who knowingly sinned but was not seeking to make a public display of his sin why is there no clear statement to this effect? It seems to me that Milgrom found the simple position of the text too severe—it leaves the intentional sinner with no option for remorse and forgiveness—and therefore, sought to present a more palatable understanding of it.

[7] Presumably, if the one who forgot to eat matzot intentionally refrained from bringing an atoning sacrifice, the karet punishment would pertain to him as well. Theoretically, the yearly rituals of יום הכיפורים (Lev. 16) should atone for intentional sinners who were not caught in the act and remained alive. After all, Leviticus 16 makes no distinction between intentional and unintentional sins. It thus would seem that the rituals of the day atone for the intentional sinner as well. However, neither Leviticus 4 nor Numbers 15 makes any reference to this day of atonement and they do not seem to fathom the possibility that God would leave the intentional sinner unpunished for very long. If these authors were aware of Yom Kippur as presented in Lev. 16, one may suggest that their texts came to reinvigorate the fear of punishment that Yom Kippur largely mitigated with its guarantee of yearly atonement for all sins, even intentional ones.

[8] This festival is believed to be a late development even in the Priestly tradition. Leviticus 16 seems to have been reworked; originally, it dealt only with the purging of the temple from impurities and the priestly removal of the sins of Israel as a whole. It was not a fixed to the yearly calendar and the individual Israelite played no active role in achieving atonement. See my, “Recasting a Temple Purification Ritual as the Yom Kippur Service,”TheTorah.com (2014). I suspect that the final form of Lev 16 did include atonement for intentional sins but Lev 4 and Num 15 came to warn that the intentional sinner cannot bring a sacrifice and probably won’t live long enough to reach Yom Kippur.

[9] In general, the rewards and punishments in Exodus and Deuteronomy (and, admittedly, parts of P as well; cf. Lev. 26) are mostly national rather than individual (excepting criminal law). In Deuteronomy 29:17-20, Moses assures the people that God will not allow the individual sinner to benefit from the religious loyalty of the general population. God will single out this individual for punishment. This refers, however, specifically to the idolater and not to the one who violates any of the other commandments.

[10] One non-Priestly text, Deuteronomy 27:26, at first glance seems to be about divine punishment for violating all mitzvot without distinction:

Deut 27:26 Cursed be he who will not uphold the terms of this torah (teaching) and observe them. — And all the people shall say, Amen.

However, “this torah” does not refer to the commandments as a whole, but to the immediately preceding specific list of offences committed in secret: idolatry, bribery, incest, demeaning parents, etc. (verses 15-25). Aside from this list, Deut. 29:17-20 (see previous note), and Deut. 18:19 (see next note) Deuteronomy places responsibility for punishment squarely on the people rather than on God. (The phrase ומת הנביא ההוא in Deut. 18:20—with reference to the prophet who speaks in the name of other gods or says something in the name of God that wasn’t told to him—refers to the death penalty as shown by the parallel of 17:12 and 24:7.) Failure of the community to carry out its responsibility to punish results in communal guilt (cf. Deut. 19:10).

[11] In Deut. 18:19 we find the divine threat of אנכי אדרש מעמו (“I will hold him accountable”) with reference to the individual who refuses to obey the words of the prophet. This, however, belongs to the realm of institutional authority (cf. also Deut. 17:12) and can hardly be considered a “ritual” law. Nonetheless, I believe that we may discern an intriguing affinity between the assertion of Deut. 18:19 that God will personally punish disobedience by the individual Israelite of any single command given through God’s future prophet(s) and the Priestly assertions that God will “cut off” those individuals who disobey any command given through Moses. Indeed, in light of the tension between the authority of the living prophet and that of Mosaic law—on which see my, “Judaism without Sinai?” TheTorah.com (2015)—these two texts should probably be seen as “competitive.” It is worth noting in this context that the Priestly legislation makes no mention at all of the future institution of prophecy. (Quite possibly, the Deuteronomic verse is part of a secondary expansion that starts in v. 16. Note that this legal material refers back to and freely expands upon (and even contradicts) the earlier narrative of Deut. 5:20 ff.)

[12] See Exod 20:25-26; 22:28-30; 23:15, 18, 19. The prohibition against eating carrion (Exod 20:30) is the only one that is not related to the temple cult.

[13] Deuteronomy makes no mention of either circumcision or the dwelling in booths. It does briefly mention the command to wear “tassels” on one’s garment (Deut. 22:12). However, it is only in the Priestly material (Numbers 15:37-41) that we find an elucidation of this practice and a heightening of its importance in terms of individual mitzvah piety. Deuteronomy does include some ritual laws for the individual that are non-cultic. Other than “tassels”, all of them are negative. Note: the prohibition against blood consumption (Deut. 12:16); illicit mourning rites (Deut. 14:1); eating prohibitions (Deut. 14:3-21); illicit divinatory practices (Deut. 18:9-12); illicit dress ware (Deut. 22:5, 10).

[14] For more on the Priestly aim to infuse holiness into the lives of individual Israelites, a concern characterized the Priestly school known as H (Holiness), see Israel Knohl, “The Concept of Kedusha (Sanctity),”TheTorah.com (2014).

[15] An important example of the Priestly heightening of ritual law for the individual is found in Leviticus 23. The chapter emphasizes a prohibition that applies specifically to the individual “in all your dwelling places,” independent of the Temple – the prohibition of work on a day that is a מקרא קדש, a holy convocation. This includes every weekly Sabbath, the first and seventh day of Chag HaMatzot, the fiftieth day from the omer offering, and the first, tenth, fifteenth and twenty third days of the seventh month. Thus, this legislation fills the year with many sacred days on which work is forbidden. Neither Mishpatim nor Deuteronomy mentions any prohibition of work on the festivals. Another example: Exodus 23:15 and 34:18 mention the command to eat matzot on this seven day festival. But there is no mention of a prohibition against eating chammetz or having it in one’s house. And the reference to this prohibition in Deuteronomy 16:3-4 has been shown to constitute a late addition to the text. See Alexander Rofé, Introduction to Deuteronomy: Part 1 and Further Chapters (Jerusalem: Akademon, 1988), 39 [Hebrew].

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